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The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

David E. Sanger

4.32 · Rating details · 1,475 ratings · 182 reviews

From the premiere New York Times Washington correspondent, a stunning and incisive look into how cyberwarfare is influencing elections, threatening national security, and bringing us to the brink of global war.

Behind the Russian cyberattacks that may have thrown the 2016 election; behind the Sony hack; behind mysterious power outages around the world and the ...more

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Kindle Edition, 354 pages

Published June 19th 2018 by Crown

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Nov 28, 2018 Clif Hostetler rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events

This book consists largely of the retelling of cyber attack incidents that have previously been in the news over the past ten years. However, the retelling in this book at this time has the advantage of hindsight which provides the enabling perspective regarding background, motive and attribution that were largely uncertain when the stories were first reported. Additionally, encompassing all these stories into one book at this time allows the pondering of their ramifications on privacy, crime, ...more

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Jul 02, 2018 Brandon Forsyth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

David Sanger is simply the best writer alive working on issues of global and American security, and his latest book proves how far ahead he is of everyone else in his field. His meticulous reporting and cogent analysis of where cyber warfare is headed makes an urgent argument for international standards (a "digital Geneva Convention" is mentioned) to be discussed and adopted with haste. From the Iranian centrifuge sabotage to Russian hacking of Ukrainian power systems and American election ...more

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Oct 10, 2018 Kent rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Philip Graham is credited with calling journalism "the first rough draft of history." The author of The Perfect Weapon, David E Sanger, one of the highly respected journalists for the New York Times, called his book "current history." I am going with a 'polished second draft of history.'

As a daily reader of The Times I already had some familiarity with the topics covered in Mr. Sanger's book. However, that reading did not prepare me for what I learned from the depth of research and clarity of ...more

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Jul 24, 2018 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is an excellent and terrifying read. The Russians and Chinese and North Koreans are in the house and it seems that this administration is not at all aware of the magnitude of the threat. Sanger has a lot of access and a depth of knowledge on the issues and this history. He's also an excellent writer. I do have some critiques--he seems to think that the olympic games project where the US and Israel hacked into the Iranian computer networks was completely justified (though he worries about ...more

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Jun 22, 2018 Radiantflux rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, technology, usa

66th book for 2018.

Nice summary of current situation around cyberwar from an American perspective. This is a scary world where large state players (China and Russia, but also North Korea and Iran) are increasingly intruding (attacking?) US targets. The US is largely unprotected from a cyberattack, which could take down power, water etc. relatively easily. Having read this it's really unclear how secure US voting systems are from an attack during 2018 election cycle.

Well worth a read. A nice ...more

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Sep 13, 2018 RC1140 rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was a great review of the political and cyber landscape over the past decade or so. Not much new information if you have been following along , but really well condensed into a single source which gives things broader context.

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Jan 20, 2019 Walter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: culture-watching, toxic-tech

TL/DR: Must Read. Very scary. We're screwed. Kill your social media accounts. Abandon technology. Start a homestead. Cynics are on to something.

Full Review:

The threat of Nuclear Weapons and rise of Global Warming have occupied the top spot in the list of humanity's gravest concerns for as long as I can remember, and rightly so. We have arrived at the point in our times where just a few players controlling history's deadliest arsenal can hit the reset button and send us all back to an age when ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 Mal Warwick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Russia and China have penetrated so deeply into the electronic systems that sustain the American economy that either country might be able to set us back two or three decades using cyber weapons. North Korea and Iran appear to be not far behind. What seems to be stopping them all is the equal or greater ability of the United States to do the same or worse to them—not to mention the chance we might reduce their countries to cinders with nuclear weapons. That's the message at the heart of David E. Russia and China have penetrated so deeply into the electronic systems that sustain the American economy that either country might be able to set us back two or three decades using cyber weapons. North Korea and Iran appear to be not far behind. What seems to be stopping them all is the equal or greater ability of the United States to do the same or worse to them—not to mention the chance we might reduce their countries to cinders with nuclear weapons. That's the message at the heart of David E. Sanger's chilling new book, The Perfect Weapon. "Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus on US national security," he writes. And that competition is increasingly playing out online.

The US government has been slow on the uptake to acknowledge this threat. In 2007, the intelligence community's annual worldwide threat assessment delivered to Congress did not even include cyber weapons on the list. At that point, both Russia and China had been building their cyber capabilities for years. Now, of course, attitudes have changed. The United States Cyber Command, created in 2009, was upgraded only in 2018 into a Unified Combatant Command, one of ten in the US armed forces. Cyber Command is headquartered at Fort Meade, along with the National Security Agency, and is commanded by the agency's director. Together, NSA and Cyber Command house both our country's offensive and defensive cyber operations. Sanger explains that the two organizations work together uneasily. Their priorities are sometimes at cross-purposes.

Excessive caution about the threat of cyber weapons

David Sanger is extraordinarily well-connected in Washington. He has been writing on foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation, and the presidency for more than thirty years for the New York Times. He has been the paper's Chief Washington Correspondent since 2006. Throughout The Perfect Weapon, he cites one-on-one conversations with nearly all the major players in the drama he describes. And drama it is. This book details the bureaucratic turf wars, foot-dragging, incompetence, and excessive caution that has so often characterized America's inadequate response to the threat posed by cyber weapons.

The dilemma Sanger describes is worrisome. "America's offensive cyber prowess has so outpaced our defense that officials hesitate to strike back," he writes. Although American companies and government are penetrated online thousands of times every day, the government has rarely spoken out to denounce those responsible. Partly, this is because it may take days, weeks, or even months to assemble definitive proof about who launched a given attack. But it's also because officials in the CIA, NSA, Pentagon, and White House are unwilling for our adversaries to gain any insight into how we obtained the information. Even when we know perfectly well who's responsible, they decline to speak out. Simply citing specific evidence could reveal the existence of American or Allied "implants" in their computer systems. Like many of the top former officials he interviewed, Sanger regards that reluctance to show our cards as an error.

"The US has only rarely activated cyber weapons"

Unless the government can accuse an adversary in public, it's hampered from retaliating. The upshot is that the US has only rarely activated cyber weapons, so far as we know. (The most notable exceptions were the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear production facilities in 2010, carried out jointly with Israel, and the attack on North Korea's launch systems that caused its missiles to explode or fall into the sea.) However, Russia has not hesitated to attack weaker nations, chiefly Ukraine and Estonia, as well as both the United States and Western Europe.

As Sanger points out, there are ways, however inadequate, that the United States might combat a nuclear attack. There is always a warning, even if it's measured only in minutes. With cyber weapons, however, there is no warning. And "In almost every classified Pentagon scenario for how a future confrontation with Russia and China, even Iran and North Korea, might play out, the adversary's first strike against the United States would include a cyber barrage aimed at civilians." And the threat isn't limited to those four hostile countries. "A decade ago," Sanger notes, "there were three or four nations with effective cyber forces; now there are more than thirty." Now we face the proliferation of cyber weapons, not just nuclear devices.

About the author

David E. Sanger has written two books on American foreign policy as well as The Perfect Weapon, his most recent work. He is the Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times. ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 John rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

How to the laws of war apply to cyber? That is the question. Why not just manipulate North Korea's missile launches software prior to launch and thereby plunging them into the sea shortly after takeoff? Well, that would amount to preemptive war in violation of international law. So when Sanger seeks information about those failures at the Pentagon, he's met with stony silence. Yet cyber manipulation has happened before, namely when the U.S. and Israel caused Iran's nuclear centrifuges to whirl ...more

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Jan 04, 2019 Rick Presley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If any book deserves the sobriquet, "If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention," this one does. It is the compilation of fairly recent news items on the subject of cyber warfare. What was reported at the time it happened as nearly random, but intentional acts of computer sabotage have proven to be part of a grand strategy on the world stage of state actors to engage in warfare that puts everyone at risk. In essence, there is little if anything in this book that is new, but by If any book deserves the sobriquet, "If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention," this one does. It is the compilation of fairly recent news items on the subject of cyber warfare. What was reported at the time it happened as nearly random, but intentional acts of computer sabotage have proven to be part of a grand strategy on the world stage of state actors to engage in warfare that puts everyone at risk. In essence, there is little if anything in this book that is new, but by structuring it the way he does, it paints a far bleaker picture than when the events were taking place.

Locally, at the time of this writing, my neighbors who are using CenturyLink for their internet access are experiencing a series of annoying outages that their carrier cannot seem to resolve. It is so bad that the company is reported to be under investigation. After reading this book, I suspect this is another attack and no one has had the courage or the resources to definitely state that's what it is.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to be truly informed about the major attacks, where they came from, how they were promulgated and what the response to them has been. You will not leave with any assurance that the Powers That Be have any way of dealing competently with the threats, so this will scare you spitless, but other than that, it is a must read.

Just one example should suffice. We know that Facebook was targeted by Russian actors as a means of promulgating false news. Two major things about this infuriated me and continue to leave me without much hope that our elected officials and business leaders can be trusted to manage the vulnerability. Neither the Trump nor the Obama administrations demonstrate any competence in these matters (and that doesn't even get into the inept Democratic National Congress). Meanwhile, this is what irritates me the most:

1. Zuckerberg's Congressional hearing convinced me that our legislators at the federal level are hopelessly incompetent, uninformed, backward, idiotic, and generally clueless when it comes to any sort of technology. I am no geek, but there are teenagers that know more about computers, software, and the internet that the entire composition of the congressional investigating committee. It was apparent from their questions, their speeches, and most importantly, their findings that they do not have the first idea of what all this is about. We need competent help sitting in Congress.

2. Frontline's investigative reporting of Facebook showed that even though they may be smart at FB and Google when it comes to software and computer capability, they are absolute children when it comes to managing companies and assuming responsibility for their actions. The interviews with Sandberg and Zuckerberg had me despairing that we have given infants the ability to launch the cyber equivalent of ICBMs without any oversight.

I can only hope that the grownups show up soon and know enough about computers to handle themselves competently. If Sanger is anywhere close to prescient (and I'm deathly afraid that he is), we are going to see things get a lot, lot worse before they even begin to improve.
...more

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Jan 08, 2019 Victoria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger talks about nations’ pervasive and growing uses of spyware and malware to achieve their ends. According to Paul Pillar’s review in the Times, Sanger’s book is “an encyclopedic account of policy-relevant happenings in the cyberworld (that) stays firmly grounded in real events.”
It’s not a question of keeping the stuff out of our electric grid, the controls of our nuclear ...more

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May 08, 2019 Jeff Hexter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: business

Excellent overview of the current state of cyberwarfare (and wow, this stuff is real and ongoing). I'd heard discussions of all of the hacking mentioned in this book, but never with the political issues, only the technological issues. This added a new dimension for me.

And it is pretty terrifying.

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May 05, 2019 Budd Margolis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this book in spurts between other books because each part really required some considered thought. The Cyber Warfare issue is incredibly vital to our entire society, economy & commerce and security and the West is under attack. We are not doing enough but understanding what is going on as well a what is at stake is not just important, it is vital if we are to progress. Great book!

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Dec 26, 2018 Book rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics-economics, cyberwarfare

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David E. Sanger

“The Perfect Weapon” is an interesting look at the political implications of cyberwarfare. National security correspondent for the New York Times, David E. Sanger takes the public on a historical ride into the world of cyberweapons and how it has transformed geopolitics. This enlightening 354-page book includes the following twelve chapters: 1. Original Sins, 2. Pandora’s Inbox, 3. The Hundred-Dollar Takedown, 4. Man ...more

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Jun 25, 2018 Scribe Publications added it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, media, popular-psychology, politics-government, social, journalism, america

In a chilling new book, The Perfect Weapon, David Sanger details how more than 30 nations have developed effective cyber forces.
Financial Times

[Sanger] writes with persuasiveness and authority.
The Telegraph

[Sanger is] a shrewd and insightful strategic thinker.
New York Times

An encyclopedic account of policy-relevant happenings in the cyberworld … the most comprehensive, readable source of information and insight about the policy quandaries that modern information technology and its ...more

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Nov 17, 2019 Evin Ashley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Outstanding research, pacing of content, and articulate analyses - Sanger's book should be widely read by every American, and I emphasize American, as we grapple with our identity in the context of a global society.

I 100% agree with the NYT (to which Sanger is a contributing journalist), which stated The Perfect Weapon is "the product of extraordinarily diligent reporting...devastatingly effective."

My blood pressure rose reading about the Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential ...more

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Dec 18, 2018 Brahm rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A couple things I liked about this book: getting a better understanding of where cybersecurity/defence/offence fits into the world of geopolitics, understanding how cyber fits into the "stack" of modern warfare, how fast the cyber arms race is moving, and how particularly vulnerable (North) America is as we focus on innovation and leave security as an afterthought.

The geopolitics are so complicated: if a nation-state cyber-attacks you, are you justified in a physical retaliation? What is off A couple things I liked about this book: getting a better understanding of where cybersecurity/defence/offence fits into the world of geopolitics, understanding how cyber fits into the "stack" of modern warfare, how fast the cyber arms race is moving, and how particularly vulnerable (North) America is as we focus on innovation and leave security as an afterthought.

The geopolitics are so complicated: if a nation-state cyber-attacks you, are you justified in a physical retaliation? What is off limits for cyber attacks - hospitals, nuclear silos, or nothing? Does a nation-state have an obligation to protect private companies against cyber attacks, or hit back on their behalf?

Good depth into the Stuxnet story (Iranian nuclear enrichment sabotage), WannaCry (turns out the North Koreans did it), the Sony Pictures hack (North Koreans again), NotPetya (Russians), and more.

But, there were a couple things I didn't like.

First, this is more of a US politics book than I expected (shame on me, the reader), which makes sense because there was plenty of cyber-drama to write about in Election 2016 (DNC, Hillary server, Russians, etc). Two thoughts: I don't have any stamina left for this story, and I think it's a little too early to be writing the history books.

The other was some minor perceived inconsistencies that took away from the story. While recounting the DNC email saga, Sanger says the Russians "activated Wikileaks". Maybe this is shorthand for the sake of moving the story along. But my impression, after kinda-sorta keeping tabs on Wikileaks since it hit the scene in 2006, is that it is, or was, a fiercely independent organization. Then again - what the hell do I know, right?!

Last thing, working in automation - this book was stressful!

Final rating is tough. I liked parts of it, others not so much. Since my ratings usually reflect my overall emotional enjoyment, I'm gonna say it was "OK" (2 stars). But still came away with lots of useful information for understanding the cybersecurity landscape that will help me talk to IT and controls people at work. ...more

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Sep 20, 2018 Peter rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a well-written book on a very specific topic from a one-sided point of view with an unfortunate audiobook narrator.

That summary above is the response I'd give if anyone asked me what I think of the book. The two-star rating might seem a bit harsh, but I couldn't really justify anything higher from my perspective since I already knew the broad strokes of all the events the book covered. The details of those events were somewhat interesting, but I really didn't need 400 pages to satisfy ...more

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Mar 15, 2019 William Schram rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, military, computing, technology

In The Perfect Weapon, author David E Sanger does an excellent job of terrifying me. With America’s Allies and Enemies having Cyber weapons and attack capabilities, you would think that the leadership of America would have some kind of plan or something. Apparently, they do not have anything of the kind. Our weapons of mass destruction are aging at a steady rate, the launch computers are apparently using Floppy Disc Drives, and the people in charge of reacting to the threats are sitting on their ...more

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Aug 25, 2018 Alexander rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, reviewed

4.5 stars, rounding up. Sanger is one of the country's finest journalists on all issues cyber, and this book is frequently gripping and fascinating. It provides an in-depth look at a number of cyber incidents (including Olympic Games, which destroyed a number of the Iranian nuclear program's centrifuges).

But perhaps more importantly, Sanger pushes us hard to grapple with the need for an emerging framework of norms and laws around the use of cyberwarfare and warns (effectively, in my view) ...more

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Aug 06, 2019 Garry Geer rated it liked it · review of another edition

The author gives a truncated history of cyber-warfare over the last 20 years. I find it incredibly eye-opening especially at a lot of the relevant stories had flown under my radar (which is his point sometimes). On an interesting side note, I find his struggle to decide what and what not to publish an interesting story in and of itself. I don't know what to think about the press's (sp) role in these events.
He does address the role of Russian interference in the 2016 election, but I think he ...more

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Nov 22, 2019 Tom Oman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is an amazing and unsettling book. It feels like the first light shed on a new phenomenon that is going to transform everything about international relations and the nature of what it means for a state to be sovereign and the definition of conflict and war. It’s a lot to deal with, and this book is just the first glimpse. There is no doubt that this will have resounding implications which are difficult to comprehend or fully imagine until things play themselves out. Highly recommended ...more

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Jun 03, 2019 Sean Lynn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science-technology, military

In The Perfect Weapon by New York Times reporter and author, David E. Sanger, describes the ambiguous nature of cyber warfare. He chronicles the major cyber offensives by the worlds most digitally combative countries, the United States, China, Russia, and North Korea, while exploring the difficulties in detecting, defending against, and even classifying different kinds of cyber threats. If you are interested in knowing the capabilities and liabilities of cyber warfare, The Perfect Weapon is an ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Bruce Katz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events

a serious and comprehensive look at cyber-warfare and the weaponization of social media: how they evolved, who the key actors are, the complicated legal and strategic questions surrounding them, the disputes among agencies, and much more. eye-opening, sobering, and even-handed in apportioning responsibility and, yes, blame. it deserves a wide readership... and a far more thoughtful review than i am capable of giving.

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Oct 02, 2019 Ahmed Chowdhry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book is a healthy dose of reality documenting the cyber war that is currently being waged by Russian, Chinese, and North Korean state sponsored hackers on us. Russian disruption of power in the Ukraine, the North Korean hack of Sony, Russian fake ads on Facebook, the US cyber attack of Iranian nuclear facilities, and the Wannacry virus are all well documented.

This book goes to show where the future of battle is going. Cyber will be an important realm of any kind of conflict.

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Sep 06, 2019 Eric rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Assuming that he got his facts straight (at least to the point that he could discern what is going on through the fog of over-classification), Sanger has laid out perhaps the best overview of where we are in the cyber warfare(struggle?) realm. Both Trump and Obama take some lumps, although I think he was a bit too kind to Clapper and Comey and a couple other alphabet soup characters. Very lucid throughout.

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Oct 19, 2018 Mary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I ordered this book from the library after hearing the author speak at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Sanger draws on his reporting on national security for the New York Times to describe the ways cyber has already been used as well as to warn of the grave future damage this potentially devastating weaponry could inflict on citizens worldwide.

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Feb 24, 2019 Blake Meredith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Sanger makes a persuasive the case for taking cyber warfare more seriously. Cyber warfare is here, and our reluctance to take such threats as seriously as we take kinetic threats (missiles, guns, bombs) has cost us politically and economically.

Read this book for a detailed analysis of US cybersecurity foreign policy during the Obama administration, and for granular details of how foreign actors have compromised our electric grid, our financial institutions, and our elections.

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Jan 01, 2019 Rachel Brown rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I thought a book about cybersecurity and cyberattacks would be dull and hard to follow, but luckily I was wrong. This is a fascinating, compelling, terrifying look at the world we live in. Very well written

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